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EARLY LEARNING INTENSIFIES SKILLS
Sunam Volleyball Association aims to enhance the code
By Joel PURI SportsTok Magazine | Issue #87
The 46th national open and 12th under 21 volleyball national championships held at the Taurama Aquatic and Indoor Center was featured by over 30 Associations while Manus unfortunately missed out on the tournament as they were late to pay the affiliation fees. The national championships tournament did not cater for any New Guinea Islands teams and Highlands Region teams and that saddens the people of those regions. However, the newly appointed President of Sunam Volleyball Association of Manus Mr. Richard Sindol while observing at the Annual General Meeting expressed grief on missing out on the national championship tournament. There are athletes who play but poor management at the administrative levels slows the progress of the sport in Manus and they are now trying to take another direction to do away with politics and get the paper work in place complying with the protocols and processes in the administration to carry out the job transparently. This will also include the development structure and maybe restructuring the national competition structure down to the provinces to cope with the financial strength of the individual associations when the teams want to travel according to the national events calendar. Manus intends to work with the PNGVA INC. to build a development pathway for volleyball in the province with the vision to grow and develop the sport, especially with the kids when growing up with the sport.
However, the incoming president of PNGVA INC. Edward Aisi emphasized to focus on the youth development at the early age which is in line with the Sunam VA’s vision and this is the right channeling pathway where kids will play and grow with knowing what the next step to take in volleyball is. The Sunam VA president questioned that, after competitions, after tournaments, what is the next step again, when it comes to the sanction volleyball tournament, will Manus only go to the PNG games and what are the other tournaments? He said the road to PNGVA Inc. is through championships and national titles where Manus can also participate in those other tournaments apart from PNG Games and that is why Suman VA took this step to affiliate with PNGVA Inc. so that there is a pathway through developing local players in the province. “Affiliation membership form reached us in Manus but the deadline caught up with us so we couldn’t pay up the affiliation fees in time due to Covid-19 financial crises where Manus is badly affected,” he said. The president said, with player capacity there is a fluctuation where they have clubs from 131 wards and 12 LLG’s so all of these wards and LLG’s do play volleyball but the talent identification and creating pathway to play in such championship is rare.
“The last team Manus was probably in the 1990’s, since then till now we don’t have a volleyball representative team. Even when attending PNG Games it’s just a hand pick and not out of the 131 wards or 12 LLG’s or out of a championship or in-house tournament in the province where we make selection to form a team, but it’s a hand pick where we go waste the sponsors money and resource only to loose and blame ourselves,” he said. For so many years, no one has taken the initiative to come forward and say; look we have to follow the federation PNGVA Inc. where it is giving us the opportunity to go forward. Sunam VA is now willing to take the necessary risks to comply with PNGVA Inc. under Mr. Aisi’s care to move forward for the good of all the up and coming players in the province. “I believe PNGVA Inc. is looking forward to work with the NGI regions, especially to regionalizing the competitions and that is cost effective and convenient for players and associations,” he added.